day by day, everything has changed
by blenderfullasarcasm
Summary: Sokka surveyed the mountain of fur in front of him. "Remind me again why we can't just use earthbending?" / Day 3 of Spooktober (Burying a Body / Plant Growth/Vegetation)


tw: death of a badger-mole. also sokka thinks about eating it.

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Sokka surveyed the mountain of fur in front of him. "Remind me again why we can't just use earthbending?"

Honestly, if Toph wouldn't earthbend a grave into existence, or let Aang do it, it would be so much easier if they could just skin the beast and salt the meat. They'd be set on provisions for a couple months at the very least, even with the five of them. Well, four, really, since Aang didn't eat meat.

...Not that they would be doing that, though.

Because that gigantic heap of meat?

It used to be Toph's earthbending teacher.

"That's not how things work in the Earth Kingdom, Sokka," Zuko - _Zuko _, of all people, the guy who'd hunted them across several continents, burnt Kyoshi Island to the ground, and _threatened Gran-Gran _\- said sympathetically - _sympathetically! _\- and picked up a shovel Toph had bent some nearby boulders to make. Because, apparently, you could use earthbending for _tools _, but not for _graves. _

Sokka felt like there was something sketchy going on there, but he didn't know enough about the Earth Kingdom to argue about it.

Well, then again, it was weird enough already that they were _burying _something dead. Back at the South Pole, where things were _normal _, the dead were sent out to sea in degradable boats, so that they would sink and be returned to the Ocean Spirit.

Besides.

The ice was too thick to break through.

And also, they _lived _on the ice.

Who would _try _to create a fault in the only thing between you and the lion-sharks? Crazy people, that's who! Like Zuko's sister.

Who was probably still tracking them.

Shit.

Whatever. His point was, the Earth Kingdom was weird.

Sokka threw his arms up into the air, giving up on understanding his friends. And, yes, apparently Zuko counted as a friend now. When had that happened, and was Sokka sun-struck for even thinking that?

...He could deal with that train of thought later, though, when Toph wasn't acting so strange.

She'd barely spoken a word since she'd found out her teacher had passed away, and her eyes were unfocused - like, Sokka realized her eyes _usually _didn't focus, since she was, you know, _blind _, but this was a different kind of expression, one that he'd never seen on her before. It was like...a blank mask, pale, still, not even a muscle twitching. It was even worse than the way she'd acted back at the Beifong estate, and _that _was saying something.

Even her earthbending was slow, almost sluggish, which wasn't like Toph _at all. _

It kinda seemed like maybe she wasn't processing anything that was happening around her.

Which was pretty fair, actually, if Sokka equated the badger-moles to Gran-Gran.

...And now he felt like a complete jerk. Even worse than jerkbender over there, since at least _he _was helping Toph slowly dig the gigantic grave and not thinking about meat.

Sokka sighed in resignation. "Hey, Toph, can you make me a shovel, too?"

Toph stomped one foot, the movement almost automatic, and another shovel crafted itself into existence. It was closer to Zuko than him, but Sokka didn't mention it. He would have to pass by it to get to the growing hole, anyway.

It was just the three of them working, which was a real pain, but Aang had been banished from helping after he'd earthbent a perfectly rectangular pit the perfect size for Toph's teacher into the middle of the ravine.

Toph had stared at it for a long moment - presumably, at least, since Sokka wasn't really all that adept at reading foot looks. Foot language? Whatever.

And then Toph had spoken the only words she'd said all day: "Twinkle-toes, you need to leave."

Actually, it had sounded more like a growl, all gravelly and hoarse, like the men who turned into polar bear-dogs after their wives' deaths in the stories Gran-Gran used to tell him and Katara back when they were young and their mother - her daughter-in-law - had just been murdered.

Those had _not _been nice stories.

Aang's grin had fallen, clearly having expected a more enthusiastic response. "Huh?"

_"Leave." _Toph had repeated, grinding out the words like they were physically hurting her.

Aang had seemed like he was going to argue - or maybe give her the koala-otter eyes, because apparently he hadn't figured out that they didn't _work _on Toph, and it was only partially because she couldn't see. Sokka aspired to be her level of badassery.

(Speaking of badass, he wished Suki were here right about now. She could probably tell him what he was missing, because he was definitely missing _something _.)

But, yeah, that had been the last Toph had spoken for the day.

Honestly? Sokka was a little worried.

"Hey, Toph, is there any specific way I should be doing this?" he asked, picking up the shovel.

Toph didn't reply, or even give any indication that he'd heard him. Or knew that he existed. Ouch.

Sokka sighed quietly, then turned to Zuko. "Yo, flame breath, is there a specific way this is supposed to go?"

Zuko blinked, pausing in his digging and turning to make sure that Sokka got the full intensity of his incredulous expression. He was even more unintentionally dramatic than Katara was _on purpose, _sometimes, and _that _was saying something. "Why are you asking me?"

Sokka rolled his eyes. "You were the one who said,'That's not how things work in the Earth Kingdom, Sokka,' " he said, lowering his voice into an admittedly terrible impression of Zuko. He thought he saw Toph's mouth twitch upward at the edges, though, so it was worth making a fool of himself in the end. "So I was kind of assuming you _did _. Unless you were just making stuff up…"

Zuko blinked rapidly, again. Sokka kind of wondered if he had something in his eyes. "I - no, I'm not. I'm - I _was _the Crown Prince, so I had to have a general overview of other cultures seared into my brain."

Sokka's eyes subconsciously wandered towards Zuko's scar.

Zuko snarled, like it was a reflex, turning away slightly so that his scar wasn't visible. "Not _literally _, moron." He took a deep breath, visibly calming himself, and Sokka felt like a complete jerk for the _second _time that day.

He was really on a roll.

"Sorry," he muttered.

Zuko nodded his head jerkily in acceptance of the apology, taking another calming breath before continuing: "In the Earth Kingdom, it's considered dishonorable for a master bender, especially a teacher, to be buried in a grave made with earthbending. Since it's the students who take responsibility for the burial, they need to put in the kind of time that their teacher put into teaching them. Since earthbending a grave only takes a few moments, and teachers can spend _years _training their students, it would be...disrespectful."

Sokka scratched his head, mulling that over. "So...since the badger-moles were Toph's teachers, and they spent a long time teaching her, she needs to spend a long time digging their graves to show her appreciation?" he asked, for confirmation.

Zuko nodded, releasing a little burst of steam from his nose, before he started digging again. "It's fine for her to have help," he added, feeling Sokka's eyes still on him. "She just needs to be here from start to finish. And there's no specific way to dig a grave," he added belatedly, actually answering Sokka's initial question. "It just has to be big enough to fit…" He eyed the badger-mole warily. "...well, that."

Sokka sighed.

"This is why we burn bodies in the Fire Nation," Zuko grumbled, before getting back to work.

Sokka carefully suppressed a violent cringe, because burning bodies that were meant to return to the water? That sounded even worse than _burying _them.

But, well.

_Fire Nation. _

Sokka shrugged and started digging.

It actually took them a lot less time than he'd expected to finish digging the hole. Honestly, Sokka had been prepared to spend the entire night on it, if necessary, but the sun was only barely touching the horizon when Toph swept her foot across the ground in a slow arc, moving the rubble beneath the badger-mole - and consequently the badger-mole itself - towards the grave. Which was, in and of itself, maybe a little rough around the edges, but Toph hadn't seemed to mind, so Sokka figured it was fine.

Toph settled her teacher in the ground carefully, then raised her fist. The pile of earth surrounding the grave rose with her motion, and then floated down to gently rest on top of the badger-mole, slowly obscuring it from view.

It was kind of beautiful, actually.

"Thanks, guys," Toph said, after a long moment. "You didn't have to do this."

"We're your friends, Toph," Sokka stated, because clearly he needed to spell this out for her. "Even this jerk over here." He pointed to Zuko, who looked faintly shocked, but didn't protest. "And friends help each other out when things are sucky. Got it?" he finished, planting his hands on his hips like Katara did whenever she finished one of _her _speeches. He figured, if it worked for her, why not give it a try?

Toph's mouth pulled upward at one corner, making her faint smile lop-sided. "Yeah."

Then she punched him in the shoulder, hard enough to hurt, but he figured he kind of deserved that. "You should leave the friendship speeches to Katara, though," she muttered, digging her feet into the rock below and aiming her sightless gaze towards the now filled grave.

Sokka manfully pretended he hadn't heard that remark, instead stretching his arms over his head and yawning theatrically. "Good, because I am _starving _," he said, making eye contact with Zuko and looked pointedly at Toph, who was standing silently over the grave, then jerking his head emphatically in the direction their campsite was probably in. "I hope Aang and Katara made dinner."

"I hope it was just Katara," Zuko muttered under his breath as he nodded once, slightly, before he started following Sokka towards the camp, because apparently the _'let's give the grieving girl a moment' _head nod was universal.

Then what he'd said registered, and Sokka bit back an inelegant snort. When had Zuko become _funny? _

"Yeah," he agreed - _agreed! _With _Zuko! _What was the world coming to? "After all that work, I'm really craving some meat."

And, like, aside from Aang being vegetarian and only knowing how to make vegetarian food? His cooking skills were...not great. Sokka liked him and everything, but his skill set pretty much amounted to using his airbending to chop probably-edible vegetation into tiny, uniform pieces. Asking him to watch a pot until it started to bubble? He'd be chasing after a butterfly two ticks later. The kid was more distractible than a goldfish-fly.

...Sokka really hoped Katara was supervising him properly.

But, then again, she had a soft spot almost as big as the entire South Pole where he was concerned, so Sokka wasn't exactly holding his breath.

Zuko seemed to come to the same conclusion moments later, wincing as he followed that train of thought to its destination.

"Race you to the camp?" Sokka offered knowingly.

Zuko shrugged. "Why not. On three?"

Sokka spared a second to stick out his tongue at Zuko before he started sprinting towards the direction he was _pretty _sure the clearing they'd landed Appa in was, leaving Zuko cursing in his dust. He had a pretty foul mouth when he thought no one could hear him, and Sokka was reluctantly impressed by his creativity.

He resolved immediately to figure out a way to make him curse in front of Katara.

She'd have fun washing out his mouth with soap.

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Notes:

technically it's still day 3 in my country even if it's not in my actual time zone

title from Copycat (Circus-P)


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